Page 64 of A Spot of Trouble
Except Sam had given her a thorough grooming the night before. Nail trim, bath, ear cleaning—the whole nine yards. Sam had noticed nothing amiss.
Cinder let out a woof, and Sam held his breath as he waited for eight more barks.
Woof.
Woof.
Woof.
And then, just as Sam started to relax, the barking stopped. Cinder went completely still for a prolonged moment, and then she tipped her head back to let out a warbling, coyote-style howl.
Sam closed his eyes and prayed for a rogue tidal wave to come carry him away. No such luck.
The kids found the incident hilarious and immediately began echoing Cinder, howling like a pack of surfing werewolves.
“Dude,” one of the surf instructors said. “Not cool.”
Sam just nodded, acutely aware of just how uncool he was.
“I’m sorry. She seems to be a little distracted,” he said.Understatement of the century.“We should probably move on to something else.”
The presentation proceeded to go from bad to worse. When Sam tried to get Cinder to stop, drop, and roll, she plopped onto her belly, rested her head on her paws and yawned. When he gave her the cue to commando crawl, she rolled over. Every time the Dalmatian made a mistake, the children started howling again.
Sam didn’t bother trying to teach the no-playing-with-matches lessons. He just wanted to end this embarrassing episode and hide in his office for the rest of the day. Or week. Or year.
When the presentation ended forty-five long minutes later, Sam cringed as the surf instructors eyed him with pity and shook their heads. He doubted the kids had learned a thing. About halfway through the excruciating ordeal, he’d stopped giving Cinder commands altogether. He’d almost been desperate enough to stop, drop, and roll around in the sand himself. He’d done his best to teach the children the basics of fire prevention, but without a flashy Dalmatian driving the points home, they’d appeared bored out of their minds.
Sam couldn’t really blame them. The entire afternoon had been a disaster from start to finish.
As chagrined as he was by Cinder’s behavior, Sam wasn’t angry at his Dalmatian. His heart still melted every time he looked at her sweet, spotted face, because at the end of the day, Cinder wasn’t just his partner. She was his best friend in the world. Before he’d moved to Turtle Beach, he’d often thought she might be hisonlyfriend.
Sam swung by the dog beach on the way back to the firehouse to let Cinder romp and play in the waves. She bit at the whitecaps and chased the back and forth motion of the tide, just a dog enjoying a day at the beach. An ache settled behind Sam’s sternum.
This is probably how Violet feels every day of her life with Sprinkles.
He’d deserved what had happened at the surf camp demo. He’d been cocky, arrogant, and judgmental where Violet and her dog were concerned. She’d probably already heard all about his Dalmatian mortification—this was Turtle Beach, after all. And Sam knew without a doubt that she’d have something to say about it.
He shook his head and gazed out over the ocean’s shimmering blue depths. Oh, how the tables had turned.
***
Once the police department had gotten wind of the TBFD’s nightly sessions at the batting cages, they’d scheduled evening practices of their own. Every night around seven o’clock, while Violet was baking in the March family beach house’s vast kitchen, she saw her father and brothers descending the wooden stairs of the deck in their practice regalia. The men in her life were eating, breathing, and sleeping softball. It was worse this year than ever before.
Josh and Joe seemed to have taken her at her word after their discussion in front of the firehouse, though. She’d been spared any further interrogation about whatever was happening between her and Sam, thank goodness. Although she wasn’t sure why she was so relieved to be out of their crosshairs. She had nothing to hide. She and Sam were simply friends. Or enemies, maybe?
Frenemies.That’s what they were—frenemies who’d accidentally kissed…once.
Which was, of course, one time too many.
Violet was tired of thinking about the kiss, tired of reliving it over and over again in her imagination, tired of secretly wishing it might happen again. And despite all her bravado in front of Josh and Joe, something they’d said was eating at her.
Dad knows about your wager with Sam. He thinks your little bet is the reason why the Hoses were so fired up last Saturday.
Great. So nowbothof the police department’s recent losses were her fault?
“The town has gone full-on crazy this summer, hasn’t it, Sprinkles?” Violet pulled a tray of vanilla cupcakes from the oven to cool and removed her oven mitts.
The Dalmatian tiptoed politely to Violet’s side at the sound of her name, nose quivering in the direction of the warm vanilla cakes.
